It follows me home

Nothing like a busy day at the office, maybe a little too busy. Emails to the left, phone calls to the right and visitors straight ahead. Fortunately it was all work I like doing just too much of it at one time. That's often the way it happens though this time it is spilling into tomorrow when I was hoping to take the day off to attend my Uncle Don's funeral, full military honors at that. So I've brought work home with me and will get a couple of hours in before I leave then return home and dig in again.

Moving up, sort of

Replacement time for the incumbent Black & Decker toaster oven. God knows we've probably been through a dozen of them over the years. The worst of it is that it wasn't even worn out yet - just half useless. Doesn't toast the bottom of the bread so I'd have to flip the bread half way through the process. The things I do to stretch out an object's usefulness, just not worth the effort at times. Today, that wonderful Amazon box with a brand new Cuisinart Custom Classic Toaster Oven Broiler arrived. Amazon has become to the internet what Wal-Mart is to brick and mortar stores. We seem to go to Amazon for truck accessories to dog toys, they even sell books! Oh yeah, that's how they got started. This is the third Cuisinart appliance we've purchased, the previous two not through Amazon. A mixer a few years ago and not quite a year ago when another Mr. Coffee finally bit the dust we bought a Cuisinart coffee maker with a hot water system - very nice. We drink mostly dark roast coffee and the Cuisinart hits the mark every time. Cuisinart may not be the best but it is definitely a big step up from Mr. Black-Decker-Coffee.

Welcome to the kitchen counter.

The era of cheap eBooks

We all have our favorite authors and genres of books we like to settle in and immerse ourselves with. Be it a well thought out eBook purchase or spending an hour or so browsing through a new and/or used bookstore for the real deal that you can turn the pages. My mother picks up a lot of the books she reads from yard sales amongst other goodies. Now-a-days well known authors are ePublishing short-story eBooks maybe not quite classified as novellas. One of my favorite authors actually put out 15 of a series at $0.99 each, which almost amounts to being a whole book. Meanwhile many little known authors are putting out some very enjoyable reading eBooks at prices around $2.99 for a full novel of which I've imbibed of several recently - quite the bargains though they are still developing their craft. Of course my genre of choice is science fiction, the sub genre space opera specifically and as I've caught up to all my favorite authors novels and while I await their newest to become available I'm well entertained by the future wizards of imagination.

Chaos Quarter by David Welch (Kindle eBook) $0.99,
ripping good yarn that I found hard to put down and

disappointed when it ended.

Another one

Another relative passed away over the weekend. My Uncle Don one of my mother's sister's husband. Earlier this month My Aunt Jan wife of one of my Dad's brothers had passed away. Over all six relatives within a year's time. All but one were elderly and my cousin who passed away from illness was younger than me. Don was a fun loving and interesting guy. Really enjoyed himself around a bunch of people. I was always glad to see him.

Rest in peace Don.

Welcome to 2014

 

A bit late for saying Happy New Year. It has been a pretty active beginning to the year but as is usually the case the weather has been the center of attention. From single digit cold to snowstorms of various depths to freezing rain and back to deep cold. Definitely the gauntlet of winter weather possibilities though nothing as bad as other parts of the country. Yesterday was a sort of a warm up, to 26 degrees. Enough to allow me to take care of a couple outside tasks without risking frostbite, today 10 degrees colder with a brisk wind. The short range forecast calls for repeating that 2-day pattern. Spring, where for art thou?